The United Nations on Thursday posthumously awarded its free press award to Russian investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was killed last October.

The journalist's son Illya Politkovskaya on his mother's behalf received the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) 25,000 dollar Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize 2007 in Colombia's Medellin city.

"I am proud to receive this prize, in Colombia, on behalf of my mother. It is ironic because she should have been here herself, she who wanted to tell only the truth and show the reality in my country," Illya said at the International Free Press Conference.

Politkovskaya was shot dead in Moscow by an unidentified gunman. She was 48 years old.

Source: Xinhua